Unwell: Song Fic
by Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet
Summary: Danny's frustrated thoughts about his hectic life and reality.


For those of you watching me, I'd like to make a public appology for not getting ANYTHING up lately. This is me trying to get back into the spirit of writing so I can actually finish my stories for you.

Just so you'll know, I've completed Weakness and am half-way through the book after Brainwashed (no longer called Reunion...that's going to be the 4th book). I will be getting more up soon.

Now, onto the story.

My first (and it's quite obvious) Song fic...tell me whatcha think!

Oh, and Danny Phantom is (c) Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon Studios  
Unwell is (c) Matchbox 20

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__How is it that you can't ever imagine life getting any harder until it does? Then you just get to a point where you can cope with the changes, and more gets piled on. Work, school...in my case superheroing, or whatever you'd say._

_Why don't we ever see more superheroes have mental and nervous breakdowns? I'm almost waiting for mine..._

_Still, I have my friends, and even my family, and I think—no, I'm sure that's why I've been able to last this long._

_But there are days when I just feel like I can't take it anymore._

_There, I wrote it down. I hope Jazz is happy._

Danny slammed shut the notebook he'd been writing in, and phased it into his mattress for safekeeping before walking over to the window and throwing it open. He tried to forget the fact that he had to cram for three tests for school the next day, in three classes that he'd missed more of than made it to in the last week. He also tried (unsuccessfully) to forget that one of them happened to be math—his worst subject.

Then there was the stress of patrol, when Sam's family had gone on vacation for a week and a half. Tucker tried to make up the difference, and Danny appreciated it, but it just wasn't the same. He hadn't realized how much he'd depended on both of them until now.

Then there was the fact that his mother had told him Vlad was planning a visit for the weekend, and as much as Danny wanted to fly off somewhere Friday and stay there until Monday, he didn't dare leave his parents with his arch-enemy.

Of course on top of all that came Valerie. Her "just friends" idea seemed to have been just that—an idea. Half the time she acted like he was her enemy (as Danny Fenton) and the other half, she flirted like nothing else.

Why were girls so confusing? If she said "friends," why couldn't she act more like Sam did? He just didn't get it...and he had a sneaking suspicion that whatever he had missed was giving his friends license to call him "clueless."

He almost preferred her old indifference.

On top of that, she'd redoubled her efforts to catch Danny Phantom. He couldn't go anywhere in ghost mode, it seemed, without her showing up, ready to blast him into whatever came after the afterlife.

Everything just kept getting stacked higher and higher, and he didn't know if he could ever begin to start tearing it down.

Suddenly, he just wanted to go to bed, and never have to get up. Never fight ghosts again; never worry about the safety of those around him; never worry about another ghost again.

With that thought pounding through is brain, he plopped onto his pillow and curled into a ball.

**All day, staring at the ceiling making  
****Friends with shadows on the wall.**

He simply sat there, curled in a ball, half-dozing, but mostly just staring at the blue-gray wallpaper of his room. He tried to stop the busy thoughts flowing through his mind, and for once it worked. His mind went blissfully blank and numb.

He hadn't realized how long he'd laid there until the room began to grow dark.

In a sudden panic, he rushed to his desk and pulled out the first study guide he could reach: History.

**All Night, Hearing voices telling me  
****That I should get some sleep,  
****Because tomorrow might be good  
****For something.**

What seemed like only moments and somehow an eternity later, he glanced at his watch and sighed. Almost midnight.

He should go to bed, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't at least try to finish studying.

He so did not want to go to school again.

**Hold on,  
****Feelin' like I'm headed for a  
****Breakdown,  
****And I don't know why.**

So why did all of this suddenly seem like too much? The thought crossed his mind. It wasn't like he hadn't put up with this much before, so why now? Why did everything suddenly feel like it had almost closed in on him? Why did he find it hard to breathe? What was wrong with him!

He threw his pencil down on the paper in front of him.

Sometimes he wondered if this was all some sort of nightmare. Some horrible fantasy that he had made up. Sometimes he wished he could wake up and leave all of this behind.

But he couldn't.

A creepy thought crossed his mind. What if he really was dreaming in some sort of mental hospital at the edge of some town in the "real world?" He'd seen that on a show once, but had given it little thought.

Now he couldn't' seem to get said thought out of his head.

**But I'm not crazy,  
****I'm just a little unwell,  
****I know, right now you can't tell**

"But I'm not crazy!" he shouted, pounding his hands on the desk in frustration, and hoping that Jazz hadn't heard.

Unlikely.

_I'm definitely not mentally stable, though. _He sighed. He couldn't even figure out if he was alive, dead or undead.

**But stay a while, and maybe then you'll see,**

**A different side to me.**

Sam and Tucker couldn't figure it out either, although both of them had done some independent research on it.

They did so much for him, he suddenly realized. Not only did he depend on them, but they were always there with some word to cheer him up, or the Fenton Thermos to save his sorry behind when he had been knocked to the floor in defeat.

He couldn't ask for better friends, and the last thing he would ever think about doing was complaining about them.

Still, would he ever be able to make friends again? There was Valerie, but her case screamed "I'm different! HELLO!" in bright, bold letters.

Would he ever be able to make a "true" friend again? They'd have to know his secret, and no one besides Sam and Tuck had really stuck around long enough to even try to get to know him.

Was he really that much of a loser? That much of an obvious basket case?

**I'm not crazy,  
****I'm just a little impaired,  
****I know, right now you don't care.**

Of course, he'd been labeled a freak, and no one seemed to truly care about him besides his friends and Jazz.

He couldn't very well make them care either...not without revealing his secret.

And he was _not_ about to do that.

**But soon enough you're gonna think of me,  
****And how I used to be... Me...**

Not that it wouldn't get out soon enough.

Someday soon, someone would finally put two and two together. Then...well...he wasn't sure what would happen, but he was sure it wouldn't be pretty.

Why couldn't he just go back in time and undo the Ghost Portal's creation? He wanted things to be like they used to be...when he was invisible on the social circuit and completely physically tangible one hundred percent of the time. Back to when the worst thing he had to think about was which extra-curricular activities to sign up for, which girls liked him (or didn't like him), and zits.

**Talkin' to myself in public  
****Dodging glances on the train.**

Now it seemed like people whispered about him in the hallways, and he always feared that they'd figured it out.

That they'd figured him out.

He knew he was just being paranoid, but in his line of work, one couldn't afford not to be.

**I know, I know they've all been talkin' 'bout me,  
****I can hear them whisper,  
****And it makes me think there must be somethin'  
****Wrong with me...**

Was he so scared of everyone finding out about Danny Phantom that he'd begun to imagine most of this? Or was it his "freak" label again? Not that they were that far off. He was Danny Phantom: freak extrordinaire. Half ghost, half human. Half dead, half alive. Half "real," half not...at least according to the rest of the world.

Was he seriously messed up after all, whether any of this was real or not?

**Out of all the hours thinking,  
****Somehow, I've lost my mind.**

Danny stood up and began to pace.

Jazz would have a field day over all of this. Of course, it was her fault he'd even started thinking about this in the first place by making him write in that stupid journal.

That simply started his train of thought all over again.

"Is any of this for real?" he asked himself. "Is it?" he whispered quietly, before shaking his head.

**I'm not crazy,  
****I'm just a little unwell,  
****I know, right now you can't tell,**

Then another thought floated through the chaos that had become his mind. _Yes_, he thought to himself, _this is real. It's real to me._

This was his life. Real or not to everyone else, it was real to him, and wasn't that all that mattered?

Wasn't it?

He wasn't sure.

**But stay a while and maybe then you'll see  
****A different side to me.**

Just to prove his point he stuck his fists in the air and took a deep breath.

"I'm Goin' Ghost," he said, more to himself than anything else. Two blue rings appeared around him, and separated horizontally.

He became Danny Phantom: his alter ego...his other side.

_Talk about Split Personality Disorder._

**I'm not crazy,  
****I'm just a little impaired  
****I know, right now you don't' care,**

"Real," he muttered to himself, and pinched his arm...hard. "OW!" he yelped. Well, this definitely wasn't in his mind.

Then his hand brushed his chest, and stopped.

Even in ghost mode, he could feel a heartbeat...and he could breathe...a little. That meant something too, right?

Was he really all that psycho? Was he really all that different?

Well, it was enough to separate him from most other people, and for most of the ghosts he encountered to resent him...but when he really came down to it, he was still alive, at least partly, and he could still think. Maybe he didn't all the time, but he could.

What else was there that really made other people so different? What made them hate each other?

What made them hate him to a point where they wouldn't even give him a chance?

Why couldn't they give him one!

**But soon enough you're gonna think of me,  
****And how I used to be.**

Sudden thumping outside his bedroom caused him to jump as his parents burst into the room, still dressed in their pajamas.

"I heard you yell 'ghost,' Danny!" Jack Fenton yelled to his son, searching the seemingly empty room frantically. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" a voice under the blankets moaned, and his mother turned on the light, giving him the opportunity he needed to change back unnoticed.

He popped his head out from under his covers, pretending to rub sleep from his eyes.

**I've been talking in my sleep,**

"I know I heard you say 'Ghost!'" His father insisted.

"I must have been talking in my sleep," Danny laughed nervously.

"In your clothes?" His mother lowered the ecto gun she'd been holding by her ear to her side and walked over to him, brushing his hair aside. "You know I hate it when you do that," she said sternly.

He ran a hand through his messy hair with a sigh. "Sorry, Mom."

"You've been acting so strangely lately," she said, taking a seat next to him.

**Pretty soon they'll come to get me,**

Danny gulped. "I'm fine, Mom. Just a little stressed out from school."

"Are you sure it wasn't the ghost kid?" Jack interjected hopefully, refusing to change the subject.

That scared Danny too. How long would it be before his obsessive parents caught him as Danny Phantom? There were times when he felt sure they would be able to capture him, and often barely escaped at all.

**Yeah they're taking me away!**

Would he be able to tell them then? Could he tell them before then? Or would he just be tossed away...into the Ghost Zone? Or obliterated? Or kept to be tested and probed again and again?

The thought caused a shudder to creep it's way up his spine.

**But I'm not crazy,  
****I'm just a little unwell,  
****I know, Right now you can't tell,**

"Danny?" His mother's worried voice drew him out of his thoughts. "Why are you shaking?"

"I"m just tired from studying," he insisted, not knowing what else to say or do.

She sighed. "Danny, look. I know we keep telling you your grades are important, and they are, but your health is more important. If you're having so many problems at school, maybe we can get a tutor to help you study or something." He looked up, not sure what to think. "We can discuss some possible solutions to all of this in the morning, okay?"

**But stay a while,  
****and maybe then you'll see  
****A different side to me.**

"Really?" Danny heard himself ask. He felt a weight lift off of his shoulders at her words.

She laughed. "Now that's a side of you I haven't seen in weeks," she smiled and ruffled his hair.

Danny shook his head, but the smile didn't disappear.

"We'll make sure to get up before you go to school, okay? We can talk about it over breakfast." She leaned over and kissed his forehead. Then she stood up, and pushed a disappointed Jack out the door.

She turned just as she left to pull the door shut, but paused with her head just inside of it. "No more studying tonight, okay? I'll talk to your teachers tomorrow."

Danny felt his grin widen, and nodded.

**I'm not crazy,  
****I'm just a little impaired,**

He watched as the door clicked shut before relaxing back onto his bed. Well, it didn't solve everything, and he felt more than a little dumb for having to get a tutor or something like that...but if it could help him keep up, wouldn't that be worth it?

**I know right now you don't care.**

And here he'd thought they were like everyone else who didn't care if he lived or died.

Smiling, he got out of bed and peeled his clothes off. Then he pulled on an old t-shirt and jammed his legs into his shorts.

He climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over his shoulder, willing himself to sink into the softness of the bed and the pillow.

**But soon enough you're gonna think of me,  
****And how I used to be.**

He did want to go back and stop all of this. He did want to make it so he could have a chance at a normal life...but he wanted to see what this life held for him too.

Maybe things couldn't ever really get back to "normal," but he could try to make things more like they used to be...back when he got good grades, when he did have time to worry about zits...maybe even renewing his dream of becoming an astronaut (his recent flight into space not really counting in his mind).

**Yeah, and how I used to be...**

And maybe—just maybe—things would work out.

**And how I used to be...**


End file.
